WWPS: Asking the Wrong Questions?

Can you imagine sitting down with the famous apostle Paul, being free to ask him any questions you have about Christianity, your personal faith, or controversial issues that have historically divided persons of faith? You might even start wearing a WWPS bracelet, right? After all, you’d be asking, “What Would Paul Say.” Not to be confused with “What Would Peter Say,” of course, which would require us to come up with a nuanced bracelet that distinguishes the two, but . . . .

But truthfully, if you could ask him some of the questions that have occupied the minds of mainline Christians for many decades, how do you think he’d respond? Now be sure to set the stage in your mind first, okay? You are sitting in a chair on one side of a wooden table, Paul is on the other side (not as comfortable as you, perhaps, because he might prefer to be reclining on a cushion, but . . .); you are wearing jeans, Hoka running shoes, a T-shirt with some modern Christian slogan on it like “I can’t. But I know a guy.” Oh yes, and you have on a baseball cap, too. Paul, by contrast, is in a tunic, wearing sandals, but no cap. For a nanosecond you consider how he might improve his Christian appearance and testimony to a dying world with a wardrobe change, but then . . . you remember WHO HE IS.

Then, eager (albeit shyly), you ask your first question.

What do you think about instrumental worship music? I was taught the Bible doesn’t authorize it. You notice the bewildered look on Paul’s face, and you wonder if you’ve stumped him with your initial query. But then, he says this: “I’m not familiar with the importance of this question, my friend. Is the worshiper worshiping ‘in spirit’? Is he or she presenting a ‘genuine heart’ to the Lord? And do you look to ancient Scripture to ‘authorize’ absolutely everything you do?” He continues, “I’ve made it pretty clear in my correspondence with Timothy what I think about the ability of Scripture to teach, reprove, correct and equip. But I think your question implies a use of Scripture that goes beyond what I had in mind.

At this point, you are a bit disappointed, perhaps. You thought Paul would have thought this through already. But . . . you give him a pass, and move on with greater expectation. Next question.

What about once saved, always saved? I’ve heard people argue this issue all my life. And if someone becomes a believer but then abandons the faith later in life, then they were never saved to begin with. What’s the truth? Paul responds . . . a bit annoyed . . . , “Are you asking if a person can ‘fall away,’ ‘shipwreck their faith,’ be ‘severed from Christ,’ or allow the ‘flesh’ to prevail and thereby ‘not inherit the kingdom of God’? I think the message of GRACE is transforming and powerful, but along with it comes an inherent misunderstanding; I tried to cover this in my correspondence with the church in Rome. But the truth is this: the message of grace is so overwhelming it can be misconstrued so as to require no code of behavior from its adherents. This is why my letters contain so many prohibitions: STOP doing so-and-so; DON’T let sin reign; YOU MUST NO LONGER walk as the Gentiles; PUT AWAY falsehood, etc. I think my brother, Peter, said it well: ‘the dog returns to its own vomit.’ And he aptly says, ‘it would be better for them to have never known . . . than after knowing to turn back.’ Peter and I didn’t say all that because it doesn’t matter how one lives, you know!”

“Let me add to that; the idea of abandoning the faith = someone was never saved to begin with . . . that’s highly creative (I’ll give you that), but not very helpful. If it’s security you’re looking for, you have that in spades with grace. But stop the gymnastics of negating a past decision based on a current behavior. Give the Devil his due; his power down here, though insignificant in comparison with the Father’s, is not to be trifled with. That is, it can undermine ANYONE. I myself have stated that I have to be on my guard so as not to be ‘disqualified’ myself.”

Well, what about baptism? Is it essential for salvation? Some say belief is all that’s required; in fact, I think you’ve written that FAITH is the only essential. Some make a list: belief, repentance, confession, baptism, etc. Paul retorts: “I don’t particularly like the way you’ve parsed out this beautiful thing we call salvation. Baptism, as I’ve written before, is a uniting with Christ in his death and resurrection; it is only effective when combined with faith in the operation of God, otherwise it is only bathwater. No one who confesses without faith is truthfully confessing, and no faith apart from repentance is true faith. So, your question baffles me! The salvation experience is not meant to be dissected in this way. Why are you asking me all these contrived questions; they sound like something you moderns might create in a laboratory.

“All right” (you say), “then let’s get theological, shall we?” (Paul grins). “You want heavy, I’ll give you heavy. What do you know about the Trinity?”

Paul adjusts his tunic, and loosens his sandals: “This is the first time I’ve heard the word, my friend.” Then you reply, “It refers to three things in unity: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Does that help?”

Paul replies, “I’ve written some on this topic, too, also to Timothy. And I referred to it as ‘the mystery of godliness.’ It’s STILL a mystery to me. I’m not sure why you see the need to codify all these things. It’s like you are creating a systematic model for something that is unique, unrepeatable, and infinitely mysterious. There is a difference between God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit. But I’m not sure I can expound on that. As I wrote to the Corinthian church, there will come a time, after death is destroyed, when the Son will be subjected to the Father ‘that God may be all in all.’ But I dare not try to give more detail than that. After all, a mystery is a mystery, right?”

You respond, “So, you don’t really appreciate these questions I have asked, do you? What did you think I might ask? I’m curious!”

Paul is silent for a few moments, then speaks: “I thought you might ask me what it was like to actually see Jesus as I was on the Road to Damascus. Or how I was able to be martyred and stay completely at ease in my skin when it happened. Or how I dealt with the anger I had when I confronted Peter as he was allowing his prejudice to harm the cause. Or what it was like to ‘finish my race’ and ‘be with Christ’ in heaven. Or what’s heaven really like, or maybe . . . how you might translate faith in Jesus into terms and concepts that would truly communicate to the people in your life right now?”

And you said . . . “Oh.”

What Lies Beneath

We live in a world with many layers, don’t we?

The flowers we planted this spring has been exceptional this year, probably because we’ve put a good bit more effort into helping them look their best. My first lamb’s ear, black-eyed susan, and foxglove; petunias, rose moss, hosta, and other regulars are present, too. It’s truly amazing to watch the plants as they grow, putting out their shoots, forming little blooms, and expanding their territory down near the surface of the ground.

We see what goes on above the dirt. But the rest is hidden from us. Truthfully, the real machine is below the surface of the ground; that’s where the hard work is going on. It’s much like the proverbial iceberg, nine-tenths below the surface of the water.

When I look at my hand I am reminded of my father’s hands: the similar veining pattern, the overall shape and contour, even the pattern and appearance of the wrinkles as I approach my 62nd year on earth.

But what lies beneath?

And I am not only asking what lies just below the surface; rather, what remains unseen to the naked eye?

In the 17th century the microscope was invented, and objects once invisible were made visible for the first time. Of course, they had been present all along, but they were in a field of vision yet to be discovered. Then in the 20th century the electron microscope made its debut, and some finer parts of reality began to be revealed. Scientists began to see more clearly the tiny building blocks of our world.

To this day we still speak of things being solid (like a table), liquid (like water), gaseous (like air), etc., but we know a bit more about the way these things are constructed. We are aware that the atoms are more tightly bound together in a solid than they are in a liquid.

We could never have guessed what lay beneath the surface, even though it was fundamental, indispensable, all important.

When we look at a human being we see what is on the surface: skin, eyes, hair, body shape. And if we interact with that person we gather information about his/her personality, likes and dislikes, opinions, etc. But . . . only in a surface kind of way. We may suppose that we see below the surface with this individual or group of individuals, but truthfully we can’t say we know for certain what lies beneath. An individual’s mind (or heart, if you please) is often hidden from view.

And yet . . . it guides and drives the person. What lies beneath is something like a Central Operating System. It is never visible to the naked eye, but . . . it is the individual in his/her truest form. A person’s mind/heart can even be put to scientific testing and all that will emerge is surface information about them. Somewhere buried deep inside there is a crucial, guiding, operating system which defines that individual; it is his/her core.

Scientific studies (particularly MRI examinations of the human brain) have sought to explain criminal or violent behavior, hopeful that this tendency in persons could be spotted, then medically altered. But so far the studies have been inconclusive. There are deep aspects of the human psyche that seem to be just out of our grasp, unquantifiable, unpredictable, hidden below the surface.

Our world is made up of the seen and the unseen, the visible and the invisible, the knowable and the unknowable. It is as predictable as the turning of our globe. It is the way of things. Yet how often we function as if what we see is all there is to see.

Within each and every human being there exists this unique, hidden, altogether amazing operating system. It is fundamental to human function, indispensable to human life. But we may never see it cross sectioned, photographed and displayed in a medical journal. It is what lies beneath.

Does it take a faith of sorts to believe in its existence?

I suppose it does. But the faith does not have to leap very far, because it is the kind of faith that is informed by numerous evidences; we observe its effects in every individual we meet. Even though it is not stamped C.O.S. somewhere on a lobe of the brain, we would require a lobotomy to question its existence.

How this ubiquitous arrangement of things came about is disputed by many. Some attribute it to a personal awesome creator, others to an impersonal awesome creator, and still others to no creator at all – just awesomeness that came about over eons of time.

I think I see a common thread here.

“The Nook,” as we call it; flowers to replace the age old juniper that sat by the mailbox. [The little bloom on the outside of the bricks is called Mr. Independent, I guess; he sings, “Don’t fence me in!”]